Tagan BZ 800 Watt Power Supply Review

I installed the Tagan BZ800 into my AMD build using an ABIT Fatal1ty AN9 32X Motherboard based on the Force 590 SLI chipset. The build includes an AMD Athlon AM2 5600+, and 2 x EVGA 7800 GTX cards cooled by Artic Cooling 5 and a 4 GB kit of Mushkin XP2-6400 modules. Storage was provided by both 160 GB and 250 GB Maxtor SATA II drives and a Lite-on 16x DVD burner all mounted in the Tagan El Diablo case.

Hardware	Model
Operating System:	MS Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
Motherboard:	ABIT Fatal1ty AN9 32X
CPU	AMD AM2 5600+
Memory	2x 2 GB kit of Crucial Ballistix Series DDR2-8500
Graphics	EVGA 7800 GTX
Power Supply	Tagan BZ 800 watt
Drives	160 and 250 GB Maxtor SATA II, 16X Lite-on DVD Burner

The included set of gloves are intended to help protect your power supply during the install. And though they may look nice, I found them to be a bit of a novelty due to the slippery nature of the material. I just couldn't get a firm hold of the unit wearing them. The inclusion of a screwdriver is a nice touch making it easy to get right to the install.

This picture shows the installed Tagan with some simple cable management. After some initial baseline testing failed to put much of a load on the setup, I added in the second 7800 and a set of three Western Digital Raptors to add to the draw.

Testing:

idle

To test the BZ 800 I ran the system overnight idle before capturing these numbers using the ABIT uGuru. Although the test build isn't as power heavy as some of the top performance builds, every rail remained stable. Believe me, I never thought I would be looking at a 800 Watt power supply as a mid-level product!

Next I put each build under load by running Stress Prime 2004, better known as Orthos and Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage simultaneously for about 15 minutes in two back to back sessions.

Here you can see the numbers captured at load. The BZ 800 doesn't move much from the idle numbers showing only a noticeable change in the first +12 V rail. Overall, our numbers only change slightly from the idle readings and remain rock solid. During testing the BZ 800 exhaust ran warmer than I expected based on previous 800 Watt units but still only peaked at about 90 degrees.

To further test the rails I fired up the system to the BIOS and monitored the 12 Volt rails with my trusty Cen-Tech multi-tester. While the multi-meter is no oscilloscope; I never noticed a significant change in voltage on any of the +12 V rails tested. This time out I found no noticeable variances. The same is true while testing the system during a session of Team Fortress 2. I usually expect to see some small but noticeable variations but the only time the +12 Volt rails wavered was during the boot up.

The BZ 800 Watt power supply is also one of the more attractive units we have seen. Combining the aircraft style connectors with the light up 135 mm fan makes for a sexy picture in your windowed case.

We have picked on ABS Labs before and its nice to see that this Newegg brand is starting to show a bit more substance. However the site provided in our package is still not there! We can only go with the previous note on what exactly the certification means:

The only way I was able to find any info about this certification was to contact Tagan directly. Here is exactly what they described. To test the product, they use a high end system, in this case a QX6800 CPU with two 8800GTX's in SLI, and subject the PSU to the following tests:

This test is run three times, while monitoring voltages, temperatures and noise levels, which is then followed up with a 30 minute session of OCCT to verify that the voltage readings are still stable. If the power supply passes all testing within normal tolerances, then the power supply receives the ABS seal of approval.

In an ironic note, attempting to ad the link on the left to my favorites resulted in this little gem. It seems that ABS Labs still have a bit more work ahead of them before we can really put faith in the certification. As with our last Tagan review, I must agree; It is still more testing than most power supplies seem to get.

The Tagan BZ 800 Watt power supply is the completed package. This power supply backs good looks with solid performance and a remarkable set of accessories. I was impressed with the stability in both the standard build and with all of my extra parts thrown in. The BZ 800 stays cool and runs quiet even when running some serious stress testing. Again and again during the testing I find my self bringing up how attractive everything looks but it is just too easy to package an average power supply in a pretty UV package and call it good. So to find all the bells and whistles without an lack of performance is refreshing.

With a street price over $200, the BZ 800 faces some strong competition. By including extras like the bags and such, Tagan does a nice job of differentiating its self from the crowd. Will you find the extras worth the extra cost? That's a matter of personal taste. I find the Tagan BZ 800 provides a nice mix of everything I would put on my power supply wish list and it looks good doing it.